Men's foilists finish 9th at Worlds

17th October 2011

17th October 2011
A round up of Day 8 of the action from the World Championships in Catania.

Laurence Halsted insists the best is yet to come as he helped bring the curtain down at the World Fencing Championships in Italy by cementing Great Britain’s place in the top ten in the men’s foil team event.

The 27-year-old joined forces with Richard Kruse, Ed Jefferies and Jamie Kenber in Catania but were dealt an early blow as they followed up victory against Iran with defeat to Germany, meaning the best they could finish was ninth.

But rather than get down in the dumps the squad bounced back with comfortable victories over Brazil, Egypt and Ukraine to achieve ninth, their pre-tournament ranking.

However, Halsted is a firm believer that they should have their sights set firmly on improving this position with London 2012 fast approaching.

“Finishing ninth was a solid result and it was where we were ranked going into the competition so you have to be happy with that,” said Kruse – who like the rest of Britain’s fencers is supported by Beazley.

“But we now need to press on from here and start beating teams higher up because if you just beat the teams you are expected to beat then you don’t go any higher.

“We made the best of a bad situation as after the loss to Germany the best we could do was ninth and we achieved that fairly comfortably.

“But it is about going further than you are expected because you always want to improve and we need feel as though we should have beaten Germany and that we handed them the win really.

“So while there are positives there we are all determined to improve this too to give us the best chance of success at London 2012.”

Also in action on the final day were Great Britain’s women’s epee team of Corinna Lawrence, Georgina Usher, Jenny McGeever and Elisa Albini.

And despite finishing 14th overall Usher, making her comeback to the world stage after five years out to raise a family, insists the future is bright for the squad.

“I am quite excited because there is a lot of young talent in this team and a lot of potential ahead of London if we keep on improving and working hard,” Usher said,

“We were so close to beating Russia who have won an Olympic medal so that just goes to show the kind of talent we have in the team and we just need to believe in ourselves a bit more now."